Crenk » blog

TIME Magazine launch TechLand

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:06:01 +0000

The folks behind TIME magazine at TIME Inc. have just launched their new technology website dubbed Techland. The new website has many old faces from TIME on its masthead including their Tech editor Lev Grossman who’ll be a regular contributor.

They’ll cover the more ‘user orientated’ area of the market with much of their categories revolving around products and less about news. These categories include Gadgets, Gaming, Culture and Videos.

Overall, it looks like a good website from a reliable bunch however the design is a little sloppy and I’d imagine they’ll be tidying things up a bit as the site grows. The ties with TIME are still evident with many of their information pages such as ‘Contact Us’ leading directly to TIME’s customer services page.

Top 10 Web 2.0 Blogs on Blogs.com

Steven Finch — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:45:23 +0000

I was lucky enough to be asked by the Sixapart team to post a guest list on Blogs.com. My list was titled Top 10 Web 2.0 Blogs and here is the list below.

CenterNetworks

Web 2.0 news from the Big Apple (NY). Allen Stern provides some great reading.

Crenk

Fast growing blog reporting on everything from web apps to Bittorrent news. Great selection of reviews on the best web 2.0 apps by Insomnia Media.

Download Squad

Profiling some of the best web apps around. Look for more than 30 articles every day.

Go2Web2.0

Orli provides the news of what is happen in Israel and surrounding countries, plus profiles only the best web 2.0 products.

Mashable

Dedicated team who profile some of the best web 2.0 services available. Look for over 20 articles everyday.

Profy

Providing a Russian point of view on the world of technology by Svetlana Gladkova.

Read/Write Web

Insights into what drives web 2.0 services. Great indepth analysis from some of the best tech journalists on the web.

Smashing Apps

The best lists around! SmashingApps details a new list of the best services relating to a specific topic every week.

The Social Times

Insight into the world of social apps. Founded by Nick O’Neill.

TheNextWeb.com

One of Europe’s leading web 2.0 sources. TheNextWeb also has the best technology conference in Europe.

Music Provider GrooveShark Wins Top CNET Award

Luis Sandoval — Fri, 29 May 2009 12:00:18 +0000

Grooveshark is an application that was reviewed here on Crenk sometime ago. At the time, I didn’t see the relevance of

Grooveshark awarded CNET's Top 100 Webware Award

the application, though it had some good aspects, I just did not feel comfortable with the entire package. It was not long after that post that officials from Grooveshark contacted me for a dialogue encouraging me to take a look at the offerings again, highlighting features I had not really seen the first time around. In the year that I’ve had with Grooveshark, I’m impressed with the continued efforts it’s making to establish itself as a viable music service for users.

CNET was obviously impressed enough to award it the 2009 Webware Winner for Audio and Music. Grooveshark has indeed come a long way and its user base has grown significantly. With this announcement comes features that again make Grooveshark heads above the rest. For starters their partnership with Ping.fm to build Tinysong API, which allows users to take the code and develop webapps that provide access to Groovesharks extensive library of music. It will be interesting to see what developers come up with as we’ve seen with various other online applications, the opening of the API makes it easy for supplementary apps to proliferate the net.

The second feature that was announced deals specifically with the blogging community. Grooveshark has announced that is now has a Wordpress plugin that allows integration into blog posts for users to set up their favorite songs for specific posts. You can set up just one song, or a playlist of songs for your readers on your site. An interesting option, at the very least you could create a small station of songs on your, possibly with a widget.

Grooveshark is definitely expanding its platform and appeal, and it should be interesting to see how much further they go in 2009!

Intense Debate: Enhance Comments on Your Site or Blog

Steven Finch — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:52:12 +0000

IntenseDebate is a new wordpress plugin which offers an enhanced user commenting experience. Currently IntenseDebate has a easy to add wordpress plugin in which you can add straight into your platform and within a few clicks it can be live and working. Features include: commenting threading, reply by email, profiles, widgets, twitter integration and more.

IntenseDebate is one of many comment plugins that really help you try to increase traffic and build community around your site. I really think this idea has legs, but it needs to be part of a much bigger platform. It would be great if Wordpress took a few ideas from IntenseDebate and added them into their platform.

Wordpress 2.8 Releases in Beta

Steven Finch — Sun, 17 May 2009 17:01:49 +0000

WordPress Testers and early adopters can now download Wordpress 2.8 and test the new features that promise to make WordPress better and more powerful than before.

There are lots of new features in WordPress 2.8 that are really interesting. Here are a few user features you can look out for

New Theme Installer routines
Add CodePress syntax highlighting to Theme and Plugin editors
Use “Custom Header” for menu text and revise Default theme to reflect change
Separate Comments into a separate postbox, from Discussion postbox, on the Edit Post screen
Make tags accessible without Javascript on the edit screen
Don’t ask for confirmation when marking a comment as spam
Don’t notify post author of own comments
Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns as set via the Screen Options tab
Add column “Rating” in Administration > Links > Edit
Improve installer to help people entering wrong email addresses
Per Page option for plugins
Show absolute date instead of relative date for scheduled posts
Autosave post/page when pressing Control/Command+S
Add toggle all button to the Gallery tab in the uploader
Support more than one gallery on the same page
Add per page option to Screen Options for comments, posts, pages, media, categories, and tags
Show Tools menu for all users so they can access Turbo
Fix most popular link category list
Add description field for tags
“Choose a city in the same timezone as you” for Timezone in Administration > Settings > General
In upgrade process, provide better explanation for database upgrade message
Enforce unique email addresses in Add/Edit users
Hide things that need to be available to screen readers via offscreen positioning
Use invisible class for hiding labels and legends
Use a semantic class name for text targeted to screen readers

Download Wordpress 2.8 Beta 1 now and try it out. Since its a beta release, don’t try it on your primary blog.

Blah Girls: Why Isnt Ashton Kutcher Pushing It on Twitter?

Steven Finch — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:00:03 +0000

Over the last few days there has been a lot of talk and discussion surrounding Ashton Kutcher and CNN. First he manages to get almost as many followers on Twitter as CNN (almost 900K). Then he challenges CNN to a race to get to 1 million followers first. If he wins, he’ll “”ding dong ditch” Ted Turner’s house.

This made me think a bit about Ashton and his original tech startup the Blah Girls. Blah Girls launched with a lot of press and publicity (mainly due to Techcrunch and Michael Arrington), but now it seems to be a very basic gossip blog with a cartoon attached.

Blah Girls produce a weekly vidoe who is pretty much a catoon spoof. The videos are very well develop and quite cool. However, these videos and Blah Girls in general doesnt seem to be getting much traction at all. The Blah Girls Youtube channel has over 3,500 subscribers but each video seems to be lucky to get more than 1000 plays. Plus for some reason YouTube has given Blah Girls a partner page, but they dont seem to meet the requirements of being a YouTube partner (apart from the fact that Ashton is quite well known).

Back to the site itself it seem that is had an initial push at launch but then has been slowly growing at the same pace as a normal gossip blog. The site has a great design, but there seems to be a huge gap of white space between the video section and where the actual blog starts. Ashton I really think you need to take a look at the design and try to piece it all together a bit better. Additionally, Ashton why arent you twittering about Blah Girls on your Twitter stream? Im sure 1m followers will really help you in pushing your site to the next level faster, plus you have a benefit that no other gossip blog has, your already bloody famous!

Top 5 Digital Music Blogs That You Should Read On a Daily Basis

Steven Finch — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:24:35 +0000

For the last two years we have been developing RouteNote at Insomnia Media, and in that time have been closely keeping an eye on digital music news and where the shift is going. I thought I would write a quick post and let everyone know my favourite digital music blogs to follow.

Hypebot – Hypebot is written by Bruce Houghton and is a daily report on the last news in the digital music space. Bruce is also the founder and president of Skyline Music (booking agency) and Skyline Consultancy in which he is a music and technology consultant to many music startups.

Digital Music News – Digital Music News is the news and information authority for music industry and technology executives. Digital Music News is founded and edited by Paul Resnikoff. Paul writes daily posts on Digital Music News and also send out a dialy newsletter to industry executives called the Daily Snapshot.

Billboard.biz – Billboard.biz is the digital music arm of the Billboard website. Billboard.biz discusses digital music news with normally at least 10 articles per day. Articles on Billboard.biz don’t just come straight from the USA they as encompass International digital music news, so that you get the full picture.

Digital Audio Insider – Digital Audio Insider is written by David Harrell, who writes digital music news from an artists perspective. David is in a band based in the UK and they use all kinds of different digital music stores and partners to sell/stream their music, and David’s writings are a great insight into what the average artist is thinking and what they are looking for.

Coolfer – Glenn Peoples has worked in the music industry for over eight years and founded Coolfer.com while working and living in New York City. Coolfer was a total ad free blog which is pretty unheard of these days. A week or so ago Glenn announced on his site that he would stop writing because he was offered a new job over at Billboard.biz asSenior Editorial Analyst, so you can now read his work over there.

17 New Wordpress Themes That Will Rock Your Personal Blog

Keshav Khera — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:44:51 +0000

Personal blogs are more than a bunch of words put together. A good personal blog reflects your identity, your personality and individualism and a factor of great importace here is the design. It is the first thing that the viewer notices, before making any presumptions about you or your personality. So a good design is necessary to leave a good and long lasting impression on the visitor.

To help you out with the design, we at Crenk have put together 17 new wordpress themes that we believe, will rock your personal blog. Read on.

Creative Art

Theme Info | Demo

Masinop

Theme Info | Demo

Nouice

Theme Info | Demo

Scruffy

Theme Info | Demo

Vigilance

Theme Info | Demo

Simply

Theme Info | Demo

WGrey

Theme Info | Demo

Simple Pro

Theme Info | Demo

Simple Changes

Theme Info | Demo

Reviews Theme

Theme Info | Demo

ProudBlack

Theme Info | Demo

Modicus Remix

Theme Info | Demo

Modern

Theme Info | Demo

LightWeight

Theme Info | Demo

IAMWW W2 DnD

Theme Info | Demo

Bright Spring

Theme Info | Demo

Elegance

Theme Info | Demo

So that ends the list. I hope you liked it, if that’s so, show me some love and Digg it

(By) An avid freelance writer and technology enthusiast, Keshav Khera is young geek from India. Fanatic about the web, he also writes a blog and makes unsuccessful efforts to avoid twitter.

MakeMoneyOnline.com: Money Making Tips Sites Thats Actually Worth Reading

Steven Finch — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 09:56:55 +0000

I came across a very interesting site the other day. I know its not really a startup so I shouldn’t be reviewing it, but I thought it was worth a mention anyways. The site is MakeStableMoney and it talks about how the average person can make money from home. I realise there are so many poor sites out there that seem to talk about this same issue, but for some reason I think this site actually has some quality.

Previously the site has talked about way to make money through sponsorships, best 3 google adwords books to read, 17 secrets on how to sell ebooks and more. This site can really help people make money online and I think it is a good investment of your time to check it out.

Irresistible: Personal Wordpress Theme for Free by WooThemes

Steven Finch — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:43:12 +0000

WooThemes has just released a new Free theme called Irresistible. It is a visually-rich personal blog, with a little bit of a multimedia focus. Incorporating some nifty video-options and widgets, Irresistible should meet all of your personal blogging needs. Just add your content to the mix.

Irresistible: New Free Wordpress Theme from WooThemes

Steven Finch — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:08:17 +0000

WooThemes has launched today a new free WordPress Theme. Irresistible is a personal blog theme with a great unique design, available in 9 different color styles. Download and demo it here.

Zemanta Now Available on Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and ScribeFire

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 06:19:52 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

In less than a year, Zemanta has made a name for itself in the blogosphere. By becoming the premier add-on to the FireFox browser, bloggers now had access to an amazing set of tools to provide further depth to their posts. With hundreds of thousands of downloads, it seemed like a surefire winner, and there was little doubt that Zemanta has room to expand, but where and when?

Zemanta late last year supported another FireFox add-on called ScribeFire, a simple blogging tool that opened up in your browser without having to log into any other site or leave the page you are on. This allowed for amazingly quick posting to the blog of your choice, but also provided the same depth that you had available to you from within most popular blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, and TypePad.

Recently it was announced that Zemanta has made another move towards mass market exposure, it has integrated with Gmail and Yahoo Mail, offering users of those mail clients the ability to attached related articles, pictures, and keywords to their emails that the recipients might need to fully understand the topic. I personally can’t imagine a better mass exposure opportunity than attaching yourself to two of the largest mail clients on the internet today.

Zemanta is a key tool that I recommend all bloggers install, but now with mail enhancements, I’m happy to see them growing. I’ve always been a big supporter of their efforts as it’s nice to see innovative ways to breathe life into a long standing medium like blogging.

It’s apparent that Zemanta will continue to offer what it always has; by offering photo suggestions, article suggestions, and keyword suggestions, as you type, updating every 300 words, there is bound to be another leap into further integration.

Perhaps a jump into an office platform for document and presentation creation, like Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. Only time will tell!

How To Make My Blog Stand Out From The Crowd?

Steven Finch — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:24:43 +0000

Yesterday I was having a great conversation with Marshall Kirkpatrick (Vice President of Content Development at RWW, not sure what that means) about how to get your blog noticed in the current environment. The discussion started with me posing the basic question “how can I get my blog noticed because we seem to be producing very good content but not getting the rewards”?

It was first mentioned that Problogger is the best source for this information on the web, however I have been reading his site for many years now and most of the content seems to be getting a little reproduced. Additionally, Problogger talks a lot about social media and how to use it to your advantage, but these days everyone has been reading those articles for year and most bloggers use StumbleUpon, Digg, Mixx, Buzz and other very proficiently. If most bloggers are using these tools to their advantage then you still have the same issues, how to stand out from the crowd?

I know that here in Europe a blog that has been on the rise lately is TheNextWeb, but I know these guys have been writing that blog for several years now and they also have one of the best technology conference on the mainland of Europe. Therefore if I want to improve my readership it is a little difficult to just start a conference, or is it worth adding some add-ons to the site such as job board, marketplace or others?

Content is also a major player in this issues, cause most good bloggers say that content is king. However, I think that content is king when you are either a small blog or a large blog, but definitely in the middle content isnt king and it is all about promotion and push.

This is main problem with web 2.0, noise! Currently, there is just simply so much noise in most niche’s, so why instead of writing individual sites and keeping a little revenue, maybe the plan should be to join forces with other blogs and create a larger blog and take a smaller slice of a much larger pie.

I propose this question to you, “how can I get my site to stand out from the rest, especially considering we produce amazing content that is much better than the majority of our competitors”?

Twingly: The Blog Search Engine That Is Actually Moving In The Right Direction

matt — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:20:40 +0000

When you have an urge (we all get it), or a task that requires you to go sifting through blogs, what is the first place that comes to mind? Technorati of course. It is an established player in a fairly open market which has seen their superiority fairly untroubled. Until now?

Enter, stage left, Twingly.com, a Swedish blog search engine founded by Martin Källström.

According to Twingly.com’s ‘about‘ section, the philosophy behind their search system is to produce “a blog search engine featuring a spam-free, faceted, social search for the global blogosphere”. Nice, but aren’t Technorati and URLFan doing the same thing? Twingly uses relationships, ie how well linked each blog and article is, to work out how relevant to your search they are. Key to the service is a blog’s ‘approval’. If a blog is not approved by the Twingly team (meet them here), it could potentially be spam. If you are the owner of a blog that comes up as not being approved, you can of course resolve that little issue by sending the Twingly team a swift e-mail.

You can express your opinion on the blogs Twingly finds via a fluorescent green ‘links/likes’ tab. This shows you how many people are linking to the page and it allows you, once you’ve signed up to the service, to vote on if the post is relevant or useful – it’s the equivalent of Technorati Favourites.

Where it gets really interesting though is the blog profile page. With some nifty “research”, we can compare Crenk’s ranking on Twingly, Technorati and URLFan.

Crenk is ranked 3/10 (10 being the highest) with 43 blogs registering as being linked to various articles on Twingly. Technorati claims 80 and URLFan says 45, with 199 other mentions. These are vastly differing numbers, and you have to wonder if Technorati is brilliantly accurate or if it’s not omitting that nasty spam.

Some other nice touches from Twingly include the ability to search within a certain timeframe, as mentioned you can search by one of the 12 supported languages, and you can also look for blogs that have been officially approved, thus weeding out any other possible spam.

Twingly have also released their top 100 blogs by ranking, and if you are proud of where your blog sits in their 1-10 scale, you can of course throw on that all important badge to show it off. One rather large omission however, is the Huffington Post.

With this in mind it is safe to say that Twingly isn’t the most accurate blog search engine, yet. However, the layout is simple and practical, and although the ‘likes/links’ updating isn’t instantaneous (it took about ten minutes to register), the future looks very bright for the Twingly team who are currently overseeing about 25 million searches per month.

Twingly has the potential to be a very good blog search engine. It looks good, is quick when pulling together results and the blog profiles, in relation to each other, are very useful; it even has some pleasant widgets to pop alongside your page ranking.

They are very much into their feedback in Sweden, and you can vote for your most wanted features at the Twingly Tech Plan page.

Try Twingly.com out for yourself and let us know what you think.

You Can Now Update to Wordpress 2.7 Just Like Crenk

Steven Finch — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:13:31 +0000

Here at Crenk we have updated our site to the new Wordpress 2.7 and it is better than ever.

It only took about five minutes to upload via FTP and it is so much better than the previous 2.6 version.

The interface is a lot easier to look at and the dashboard has so many features to use. Additionally, one of the best features has to be editing and commenting right within the admin dashboard. Brilliant.

If you haven’t already head over to Wordpress.org and download Wordpress 2.7 now.

Wired Has Decided To Close Music Related Blogs, Listening Post and Underwire

Steven Finch — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:34:20 +0000

Wired have decided to close Listening Post and Underwire. They are citing a great deal of overlap among Listening Post, Epicenter and Underwire so there is a wisdom to concentrating our fire where it will have the most impact.

Wired have thanks approximately 12 writers who have worked on the blog and it still hasnt been fully confirmed if they will be completely out of a job or not.

This seems to be a very strange move from Wired. It might have just been better to slowly move the Listening post material into another niche instead of just closing down the 40th most linked to blog in the world according to Technorati. I really do think it is a shame because I have been really loving the Listening Posts articles over the last year or so, and if the writers ever need somewhere to write please contact me, because we also have another blog over at RouteNote in which we are always on the look out for writers who can help musicians in the current climate.

Technorati Media Launches Their AdEngage Product. Just a Poor Advertising Network

Steven Finch — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:52:25 +0000

Technorati Media has finally launched their Engage (advertising marketplace product) live. Previously this new tool was in Alpha stage and only certain people could use the product. This all happened because Technorati purchased AdEngage.

Since purchasing AdEngage and launching Technorati Media I think Technorati has really lost sight of what their core business model is!

Technorati was a blog search engine that doesnt currently have really market share and presence and their product offering seems to be going down hill by the day. To compensate for this they purchased AdEngage and launched Technorati Media, which is just an ad network.

Looking at the current results from this ad network which has been in operation for several months, seem to be very poor. They are selling advertising for blogs such as The Inquisitr and Profy. The results seem to be as follows, for CPM advertising they are offering a decent CPM rate in between $1.00 – $2.00, but ads are currently only for the USA market and even then their fill rates arent 100%. For all other countries they suggest to use Google Adsense, which is fine, but unless you have a huge amount of USA traffic then this isnt really worth the effort, because what you make on USA revenues you lose on Google revenues elsewhere. In terms of selling sponsorships they also seem to be terrible, with The Inquisitr having 2 125×125 ad slots in the sidebar in which they havent even been able to sell 1 for a few months.

This is all about Technorati realising they dont have a search engine product that is any good, so they are looking for additional revenues streams which will help them eventually sell the company. Is that the way it is or am I wrong?

You Could Be Britney Spears New Boyfriend!

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:07:50 +0000

Okay, it’s a long shot, but with her track record, you actually might have a chance. I’m not saying anything is wrong with her, she just likes to meet a lot of people.

Well watch out world, Britney is online in the social media world. Where? You can connect with Britney on Twitter…or with her “people” at least. To coincide with the launch of her new blog site, fans can follow her on the Twitter stream and even reply to her. I wouldn’t hold your breath for direct answers, but stranger things have happened.

Any way you look at this, whether you like Britney or not, enough “mainstream” artists, performers, and other entertainers jump on Twitter, it will be hard to ignore its dominance in the market.

Socialtext 3.0 Leads Web 3.0 Revolution?

Luis Sandoval — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:50:46 +0000

Web 2.0 was a buzzword that has been beaten to death, but for those that still use it know that the technology’s tools that have connected users through various social networks and other online applications have been what 2.0 has been all about. Pundits speculate just what 3.0 will be, and in my opinion the next level of the internet will be full blown collaboration across industries, disciplines, crossing borders, barriers, and timezones. The world is quickly becoming a connected society and collaboration has become key both in our personal and business lives. The internet is vital for our own successes and united online will further develop our dependency to one another.

Socialtext 3.0 is an online application that looks to lead the pack in 3.0 technology. This enterprise collaboration tool connects employees within a company, and the company with its customer base in a way that is all in one, and does not rely on jumping from social platform to social platform. Think of Socialtext as a combination of Twitter, Facebook, Wiki, and Blog, all wrapped into one with seamless integration and manipulation to maintain company identity.

In a market that is quickly becoming full of enterprise clones of Twitter and other social networks, Socialtext does have an uphill battle in the market. On their side is the fact that it’s a one stop shop and some major leaders in the industry have already recognized the importance of such an application such as IKEA, Kraft, Intel, Symantec to name a few.

In an article on TechCrunch, they best explain by saying “SocialText 3.0 has the feel of a technology that emerged in the open source, community-driven culture, yet is now well-positioned for adoption by small and medium-sized businesses that more and more are linking together across corporate domains and between workers, partners, and customers.”

The idea is to increase productivity and ingenuity by collaborating with your co-workers in a way that does not hinder the day to day operations of business. No more waiting for “water cooler” talk to exchange ideas or workout problems, Socialtext 3.0 brings the world within your company to you.

TechCrunch Hits 1 Million Milestone

Luis Sandoval — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:56:17 +0000

TechCrunch is a self proclaimed “obsessive” site for everything technology, especially start-ups. Michael Arrington, co-founder of TechCrunch, has a well established career in doing what he loves best and, in my opinion, being damn good at it. But don’t take my word for, they have just recently hit a huge milestone for any site, over 1 million subscribers follow them via RSS Feeds. In less than 39 months they have achieved this goal and by the looks of it, will continue this trend.

Arrington reports that like any other site, their numbers fluctuate. Weekends are slow, but mid-week is their best time period. Still, even with the fluctuations, fans stay for the news and are even offered various ways to stay in touch with what is happening in the world of technology; Twitter, RSS Feed, FriendFeed, are just as few examples of how TechCrunch stays in touch with their readers.

Recentlly TechCrunch held their TechCrunch50 event which has been covered on Crenk here and here. Because of Arrington’s love for start-ups, he offers some of the best in the world a stage for them to highlight their products, network with VC’s and other interested high profile people, and in turn gives a little back with the success he’s achieved.

I highly recommend businesses to take a look at TechCrunch because as investors, you could be a part of the next big thing in the tech world!

Mashable: Non-stop Technology & Web News

Luis Sandoval — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:37:32 +0000

Founded in 2005 in an unlikely city in Scotland, Pete Cashmore has turned his dream of up to the minute updates on everything tech, media, web, and social networks into one of the most profitable blogs in history, Mashable. With over 5 million monthly pageviews, anyone that makes it on the site either in an article or as a sponsor for the site is sure to be seen by the who’s who of the online media world.

Mashable has been highlighted in Technorati, the New York Times, Washington Post and Forbes, while being a fan favorite to interact and catch up on the latest events. Mashable’s contributing writers are all published and established writers that look to be a part of a much bigger blog. Just recently Pete and the Mashable team put on a Mashable Tour with their partners of Social Media Camp. This multi-city tour highlighted presentations from the best of web and media minds and afterwards offered an excellent opportunity for these minds to mingle.

Currently Pete Cashmore divides his time between San Francisco, New York, and the UK. He’s constantly staying abreast of the latest trends in social networks, and hosts monthly events to keep the conversation going.

I have personally met Pete during one of the Mashable tours here in Austin, and was amazed at how cool and approachable he was. He literally took photos with all the hundreds of people that attended the after party and was truly interested in talking to everyone.

Mashable is a definite site to subscribe to, and make sure to follow Mashable on Twitter as well for even more information then you think you can handle. Just watch out for the overload!

Profy: A Technology News and Analysis Site, Which Is a Must Subscribe

Steven Finch — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:13:10 +0000

Profy is probably the first technology related blog I ever read. Since initially launched in September, 2006 Profy has built a loyal readership among startup owners, engineers, bloggers, investors, and general tech-savvy audience.

In the last few months Profy has been having problems keeping its authors, but since then Svetlana Gladkova has taken over the editorial status and the blog seems to be rising again. About three months ago Profy had a redesign and Im really liking the new look, except for the logo change!

Profy release about 3 or so articles per day and these articles are rich in analysis and also hot off the press when related to technology news. I would like to see them get some more authors on board and also incorporate the old green style back into the site. Additionally, they are not promoting the blogging platform they launched about six months ago. However, that all being said, Profy is one of the leading technology blogs on the internet, and it is a must subscribe!

WebHostingRating.com: The Newest Place TO Head to Find Out The Right Hosting Package For Your Needs

Steven Finch — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:59:48 +0000

WebHostingRating.com is a new host rating site where they are trying to build the biggest searchable web hosting directory featuring complete information on all web hosting providers, all their web hosting plans, promotional and discount coupons, and unedited reviews by real customers.

From what I can tell this service is built on a Wordpress platform which incorporates a review feature, allowing users to find the right provider and package to suite their needs.

Webhostingrating.com also have other sections on the site, such as a directory, web hosting awards and web hosting tutorials. The articles section is basically their blog in which they discuss everything web hosting. The site itself is brilliantly design and I can see this type of directory really taking off.

Since the site is relatively new, they have only review 4 key web hosting companies at present, but make sure you keep and eye out for more coming in the future. The hosting companies they have reviewed are all Unix hosting, but they have other categories that I’m sure will develop over time, such as Windows hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, collection hosting and managed hosting.

While offering some good reviews on trusted hosting companies, they are also writing their own corporate blog, which discusses everything from the world of web hosting. Currently, they seem to have approximately 100 articles in a variety of categories. These categories range from domain hosting to ecommerce to scripting. All the articles seem to be of good length and are very helpful. It would also have been nice to see them add a few pictures in the posts to mix up just the plain text. Normally, a site with the quality of articles they have would grow in the blogosphere, but add in the reviews section and you have a great site in the makings.

Anyways, make sure you head over to Webhostingrating.com and I’m sure they can help you find the right hosting package to meet your needs.

Top 5 Blogs for Women…

Luis Sandoval — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:51:42 +0000

…but men can read them too

There are a lot of blogs out there done by women on a variety of topics. Men, don’t skip over this post, look at this as an opportunity to get a glimpse into the minds of our counterparts. Perhaps you’ll learn something!

I for one highly respect these women, and while I don’t always agree with some ideas shared, I do commend them for taking to the web and building a community to network with.

5. Broadsheet – This witty and well written blog on the Salon.com network covers women interests in lifestyle, politics, news, health, and celebrity gossip. The writing is very intelligent and I’m very impressed with the comments left in some of the posts. Of the more recent posts I highly recommend the hilarious post “1,250,444 ways to please your man.” Sorry guys, threesomes and foursomes are just not the order for the day.

4. Jezebel – I really love this blogs layout, and the articles range from fashion, to self help, to feature articles on people, places, and groups. This is another blog that has an amazing following and most importantly this blog holds no punches. You doubt me? Guys, think girls are all pristine and polite, well guess again, women are human, and the post “How Do You Break The Poop Ice With A New Paramour?” is a great article. Sure you can snicker and laugh at the topic, but she’s talking about a real problem, and not holding back. Definitely give this blog a try!

3. Our Bodies Ourselves – On a more serious note, this blog has information for women regarding motherhood, health, child care, and other body related issues affecting women. This site is a bevy of information and I recommended it to my wife. Men, I definitely recommend you read this site because these are issues that women, in general, feel very strongly about. Educating yourself on these issue would do you some good. I’d recommend an article, but through the the archives, this site just needs to be added to your RSS Feeds, everything is worthwhile.

2. Feministe – I’ve been reading this site for about three weeks now. I have to say hands down that this site makes me think more than some of the other blogs I’ve listed here. The posts are very tightly written, all topics are well formulated, and the comments are a great resource for discussion. This is one of those sites where I truly don’t agree with everything that is written, but I’d be lying if I said I was not intrigued. Great work, great writing, great posts. I highly recommend the post on John Edwards.

1. Feministing – Okay, this may not be the prettiest site out there, but damn if the information isn’t interesting. From the get go you are slapped in the face with the reality of how women are treated and/or thought of in not just our country but the world. This site tackles subjects on the treatment of women the world over. I find it highly encouraging that they are taking the time to also seek out women in specific industries and highlight them, specifically their women of science segment.

So now that you’ve had your fill, I hope to see women responding to these sites in the comments section. Do you have other sites you’d like to see highlighted or reviewed? I look forward to reading all of your comments!

9Rules Submissions Now Open

Steven Finch — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:09:24 +0000

9Rules has just opened their submission window. I have already submitted Crenk to 9Rules, so we can see if we actually get into the fold this time. 9Rules is basically a community of some of the worlds best blogs. It helps readers find information from credible sources and not just any smuck writing a blog. Their submission window is only 24hrs and done every quarter normally. If the 9Rules guys read this post, come on how can you not have Crenk in your network!